By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Jesus astonished people with the
way he taught and interacted with others because he wasn’t aloof, domineering
or hypocritical, Pope Francis said in a homily.
“Jesus wasn’t allergic to people. Touching lepers,
the sick did not disgust him,”
whereas the Pharisees — who strolled around in fine clothes — looked down on
the people and considered them ignorant, he said at the Mass Jan. 10 in the
chapel of his residence.
“They were removed from the people, they weren’t
close,” the pope said
of the Pharisees. “Jesus was very close to the people and this gave
him authority.”
The pope’s homily centered on the day’s Gospel reading (Mk
1:21-28) in which people gathered at the synagogue in Capernaum “were
astonished” at Jesus’ teaching because he displayed an authority that differed
so greatly from that of the scribes.
The people would listen to and be respectful toward the doctors
of the law and the scribes, but the people didn’t take what they said “to
heart,” he said.
These teachers felt themselves superior, as if to say: “We
are the teachers, the princes and we teach you. No service. We command, you
obey,” the pope said. But Jesus “never passed himself off as a
prince. He was always the servant of everyone and this is what gave him
authority.”
The traditional teachers were hypocrites, declaring the
truth, but not doing what they preached, Pope Francis said.
Jesus “lived what he preached,” he said,
representing the harmonious union of “what he thought, felt and did.”
“Jesus, who is humble, who is at the service (of
others), who is near, who doesn’t despise people and who is consistent, has
authority,” the pope
said. “This is the authority that the people of God sense.”
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